Leaving our friends behind we set out along the banks of the Orrin on a sketchy path indicated on the map, the next objective being the lodge at Luipmaldrig. Jimmy new it as Orrin house and believed it to be locked, but we hoped it would give us some kind of shelter if the rain came on again.he path that were trying to follow only showed itself very occasionally, the rest of the time the going was very rough. Time and again we found ourselves in very bad ground, large tussocks with boggy pools between and areas of waterlogged grass. The map shows the route to be close to the hillside on the left, but often the lie of the land led us away towards the river into really nasty stuff,
Eventually Orrin house appeared a half a mile away sheltering close to the hill. A pleasant surprise awaited us, the house is in excellent condition and open for Journeyers to use. It had a visitors book and a recent entry mentioned folk repairing the roof and replacing a broken window pane. Crockery, candles, furniture and even biscuits and tea bags were available to comfort weary wanderers. Orrin house would make a fine base for further exploration of the hills around.
Like the lodge at Bendronaig visited two days earlier it is set on a flat alluvial plain, a bridge spans the Orrin at this point thus opening up the hills to the south. Our journey to the house had been very exhausting and I used the time spent here to have a complete rest, my legs were very tired, but we wanted to progress. much further to the East before camping for the night.
The way ahead had no route marked on the map and we knew it was going to be tough.. After an hour or so we set out again, the going was easy for the first mile, but gradually got much harder. Every patch of bare ground had hoof prints, there must be a very large population of deer in this area, although we did not see many, probably because we were watching the ground for a sound footing most of the time.
Eventually we decided that we had done enough for the day, At the point we chose to camp a grassy slope led down to the Orrin reservoir. We were opposite to the island, a glance at the map showed that we had covered about half the distance from the bothy to the dam (where  the tarmac track starts), we were pleased with this and went to sleep content with the knowledge that we were in a good position to get to the dam before noon tomorrow
Earlier in the day Anne And Jimmy had given us small foil wrapped package marked 'emergency pack'. Although there was no emergency decided to follow my intuition, and sure enough I was not disappointed. The pack contained a 'wee dram' and a slab of fruit cake... Thus restored I drifted off to sleep.
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